November 02, 2018
Plant This: Sweet pink rain lilies
July 31, 2010 Looking out my living room window toward the stock-tank pond, this caught my eye: dozens of sugar-sweet rain lilies (Zephryanthes ‘Labuffarosea’) blooming with abandon after our recent rains. Because they celebrate the rain, I feel a kinship with them. Summer rain is always welcome here. I also …
Color Guard yucca & other deer-resistant color
July 30, 2010 It shows an incredible amount of restraint that I have not planted my entire garden with nothing but ‘Color Guard’ yucca (Y. filamentosa ‘Color Guard’). That color! The starburst form! Those curly, white filaments threading through the sword-shaped leaves! This deer-resistant, drought-tolerant “shrub” will grow in full …
Senorita Rosalita cleome mystery
July 28, 2010 I’ve been touting the delights of ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome since trialing two in my back garden last year. Through terrible drought and heat, those cleomes grew bushy and full and bloomed nonstop until fall. Last winter killed them off, but naturally I bought two replacements this spring …
Garden Designers Roundtable: Move over, prom queens! Give other plants a chance
July 27, 2010 Image courtesy of morgueFile Do certain gardens remind you of high school, where everyone orbits around the popular girls—Rosa (KnockOut), Stella (D’Oro daylily), and Myrtle (crepe)—simultaneously admiring their peppy beauty and begrudging their general domination? I’m not talking about mean girls. After all, Rosa, Stella, and Myrtle …
A Call to Shovels! In Search of the Gen-X Garden
July 26, 2010 A guest post by Scott Calhoun Over the past year, I’ve been traveling around the interior West, speaking to gardening groups, and as I scan my audiences, I’ve become worried that the demographics of gardening do not bode well for the future of America’s favorite pastime. I …
New bloom in the stock tank pond
July 22, 2010 Surprise, surprise—my pond lily really does flower. I found this generically labeled bog plant last year at Hill Country Water Gardens and had to have it for those strappy, burgundy leaves. It never bloomed, but I loved the leaf color, so when it croaked during last winter’s …
Molting cicada
July 21, 2010 Dozens, maybe hundreds, of brown, cicada-shaped husks are clinging to walls, fences, plants, and furniture in my garden this summer, showing where the buzzing insects sloughed off their old skins. Those unpromising looking shells would make anyone think the cicada an unlovely insect. But a chance encounter …
Lovely Lancaster Ave gardens at Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 19, 2010 Playful wall decor in a Lancaster Avenue garden Wrapping up my series about Garden Bloggers Buffa10, I’ve saved some of the best gardens for last, as did our hosts in arranging access to the remarkable Lancaster Avenue gardens for the final day of the event. We had …
In Elizabeth’s and Jim’s gardens at Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 18, 2010 A week ago today Garden Bloggers Buffa10 was wrapping up with a self-guided tour of the incredible Lancaster Avenue gardens (more pics tomorrow). Before we hit Lancaster, however, my travel partner Diana and I opted to stop by co-host Elizabeth Licata’s Allentown garden for a second, less-crowded …
Follow these fabulous Foliage Follow-Up links
July 17, 2010 Luscious foliage in a Lancaster Avenue garden in Buffalo, NY Even in this month of bounteous flowers, foliage anchors the summer garden. Celebrating each month’s favorite foliage plants is what Foliage Follow-Up is all about. I invite all bloggers to join me on the 16th of each …
High tea in the garden of Mike and Kathy Shadrack: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 16, 2010 Two buses carrying the garden bloggers of Buffa10 jounced slowly down a long, skinny driveway in the woods near Hamburg, New York, to deliver us to the creekside glen that is Kathy and Mike Shadrack‘s garden. A former London bobby with a sly wit, Mike has authored …
People from Garden Bloggers Buffa10
July 15, 2010 I never cease to marvel at how a love of gardening (and blogging about it) brings together people of all ages, from disparate growing regions, backgrounds, and politics, and forges instant friendships between them. To go for the obvious metaphor, we’re like a home-grown bouquet picked from …
Japanese Garden in Buffalo’s Delaware Park: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 14, 2010 One of the stops on Friday’s bus tour at Garden Bloggers Buffa10 was the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park. Part of Buffalo’s historic Olmsted Parks System, the garden was constructed in 1974 by its Japanese sister city, Kanazawa, but as Buffalo fell on hard times the park …
Buffalo’s charming Cottage Garden District: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 14, 2010 Exuberantly planted front-yard gardens, colorful window boxes, lush container plantings, shady nooks, garden art, and Crayola-hued houses make the Cottage District in Buffalo, New York, a delight to explore. It’s one of the most popular neighborhoods to tour during Garden Walk, which begins in two weeks. Lucky …
